Happy Father's Day

Hey everyone! 

So this week has been super fun! Elder Vang has been super fun to be with! He is a super outgoing guy and a hard worker! Since he has been here we have 3 date sets now! Pangia and Rainy are set for August 5th and Kuno is set for August 12th. 

Wednesday I spent the day with Elder Wilson while we were waiting for our new companions. We saw a lot of miracles that day. We were able to commit a couple to come to church for the first time and we also got to see Derick, the same Derick from Menomonie. He just had a kid so we went to go see the baby and he wanted us to pray for him. It was super cool. Derick is preparing for baptism so that is cool! He has a lot to work on though. 

This week we have met and got in contact with a lot of people. People that we have stopped by a bunch but have never been home. We have a lot of people that say they might come to Basketball on Tuesday nights. 

We went down to Menomonie and worked there for the day. It was a pretty good day and we saw quite a few people. We saw Rosy first and she is super awesome. She said she was going to go to church this last Sunday in Menomonie, but sadly couldn't because she didnt have a ride. She is going to come to institute on Thursday though. We found a couple new investigators as well. I am not sure how solid any of them are but they can always change. 

Elder Vang and I have been eating out a lot because we don't have any food and Elder Vang already ran out of money for the month. So I am going to have to buy groceries. I used all my gift cards now though.. I am sure I will be blessed for buying food for him. We decided though that we aren't going to eat out and buy a bunch of healthy food so if we could get some healthy food recipes that would be great. Like chicken and whatever else. We also have a YMCA Membership and the Y is really close to us so we can walk there every morning. 

We helped some Hmong Grandmas pick some strawberries. They were super cool and they gave us some strawberries.  Elder Vang likes to take pictures so he took a lot this week. But anyways thats about all I have this week! 

Elder Bullock

1. The Vues

2. Random Hmong family

3. Member from St Paul

4. The Yangs

5. Rosy Vang

Transfers

Hey y'all! So we found out about transfers today and I am staying here in Eau Claire so that's good! I have only been here for two weeks so I figured that I was staying. Elder Lucero is leaving though and he is going to the Hmong branch in St Paul! My new companion is Elder Vang. He is Hmong, but he speaks English too! I met him a few times and he is super cool! I think we are going to have a lot of fun together and I think he will help me out with the language a lot! I will be taking the area over after 2 weeks though! 

This week has been pretty good! The Chippewa Elders have stayed over a lot and they will be moving in soon, but we are not sure when! Since the Chippewa Elders are doing more of the English work we have been able to do a lot more Hmong work! 

We went and worked in Menomonie on Tuesday and we met a Hmong family that said we could come back. Her name Mai.. It was all in Hmong so I didn't catch all of what they were saying. We also went and saw a less active girl named Rosy. She is about our age and she is really cool, but hasn't been to church in a few months. We invited her to institute and she said she would come and she didn't so we will have to see why that was! I think she can make it back to church. At least I hope we can help her with that. 

We are teaching some older Hmong people  to speak English so we did that this week as well! They fed us some Pho and then we taught them! I went back into the kitchen to throw my bowl away and I saw a chicken head in the Pho.. Elder Lucero said that its good, but I am not so sure. 

We have seen Tais Kab (Grandma Ga) a few times this week! She gives us food every time we go over. I practice asking her questions in Hmong when I go over there! She is the best old lady! After church we had a linger longer type thing and she asked for a blessing and we got a few people to help us. We tried to give her one last week but we went over to give it to her and she asked where everyone else is. I guess she wanted a lot of people to help with it. 

We weren't able to see Bee this week because she was out of town but she should be home now! This week I have learned a lot about the Hmong Culture! It is super interesting! We tried to go buy me my own Hmong tie and we went to this Hmong store and found one but it was super old and they were asking 30 dollars for it. They said that they can make me one and make it more my size and I would get to choose the colors. So they said it would be done in July. Then the old Grandma that was going to be making it told Elder Lucero that she actually wanted 40 dollars for it. He told her that that was too much and she told us that she wasn't making it. He told me all about it after we left haha.

Anyways that's all I have for this week! I will talk to y'all later!

Elder Bullock

The Hellands

Hmong ties-Elder Lucero and Elder Bullock

Toad

Weather

10 month mark!

Nyob zoo os! Kuv lub npe hu ua Nyiaj Thoj! So this week was a little crazy. I got transferred in the middle of a transfer. President Forbes called us on Wednesday the 31st and said that I was getting transferred to Eau Claire. It was kind of weird he said it wasn't an emergency transfer just a transfer, but regular transfers are next Monday. But its pretty much the same thing. He said that I will be in a zebra area, which is a half language,  half English area. Eau Claire is a Hmong area. He said that I will be learning Hmong and if I can learn it I will be a Hmong Elder. So the rest of this week has been super fun and I have been learning pretty well. Elder Lucero is my Companion and he is from San Diego.  He knows Hmong pretty well. He has been a super great teacher. The Hmong grandmas here are super funny. They don't speak English, but I can understand a little and Elder Lucero tells me what they are saying. 

On Wednesday we spent a lot of our day biking around with one of our investigators named Baylee. He just showed us around Menomonie and showed us a lot of the history of it. He also got us into the Mueseum for free. He is a cool kid. 

The day I got here to Eau Claire, which was June 1st, we had a member from Milwaukee that texted us and wanted to take us out to dinner. He took us to Buffalo Wild Wings! I love that place so much. He was a super cool guy! That night we also went to institute and guess who was there... Tabs was there! 

We have a few investigators and a recent convert that are pretty sweet. Bee Thao is a Hmong Grandma who wants to get baptized and comes to church but her husband won't let her be baptized. A lot of the OGs, which is what the yonger Hmong kids call the older people that were born in Laos, still follow the Hmong culture. A lot of Hmong poeple are Shaman. Not quite sure what that is, but its kind of cool. We also have a Recent Convert who is going to the temple soon. She feeds us every time we are over there. She is like 90! 

So something pretty crazy happened this Sunday.. the Eau Claire ward and the Chippewa Falls branch combined. So our area got a lot bigger and we are thinking that the Chippewa falls elders will be Eau Claire English Elders and we will be Hmong and then we will have Sisters. So we think the Chippewa falls elders will be moving in with us. I also went to Relief Society for the first time because Elder Lucero had to translate. So I think that this apartment is my favorite one I have had so far. It is huge and really nice! 

Today we had Menomonie come up and we played games and Volleyball with them and the sisters so it was pretty fun. But yeah that's my week! I will talk to y'all later! 

Elder Bullock 

1. Elder Peterson and I

2. Derick and I

3. Sister Helland and Calvin

4. Derick is the coolest!

5. Elder Lucero and I

Hey everybody! 

This week was a super awesome week mainly because Tabs got baptized! We had a good turn out, for a branch, as well. So I guess I will tell the whole story (I don't know how much you know)  She is from St Louis so she is away from home for College here at UW Stout. She was trying to find God more in her life since she wasnt really raised religious. She had a friend back home that is a member and told her to look up the church and ask for missionaries and she was like there is no way there is missionaries in small Menomonie. She self referred herself about a month ago and she accepted the Gospel pretty quick and had a lot of support and fellowship from the branch. Her family didn't come to the baptism or even Skype in. They aren't against it but they are just kind of neutral about it. So I guess that's better than being super anti. But yeah it went well and we had Kate, who is a member here going to college, give the talk. The cool thing is she is home visiting her family so she Skyped in from Idaho. Brother Helland baptized her and confirmed Her! He is a super cool guy. 

We had district meeting and interviews on Wednesday so we drove up to Eau Claire and had District meeting and I gave a handbook training and then we had a training on what President Nelson said. Then we had interviews with President and those are always good because he will ask about our area and then we can ask him questions. It was my last interview with President Forbes before he goes home. Our new mission President is President Barney and he will come in the middle of next transfer. Anyways that night we went to a band concert for one of our investigators. His name is Baylee and it was his last concert before graduation so we went. He are hoping to start meeting with him a lot more and get him to come to church. 

We have been helping Jeff and Hsaing move and there was one day we were helping for like 5 hours. They gave us a ride out there and it was pretty far away so we couldn't just leave when we wanted to. We were glad we were able to help them though. We helped them a little bit today as well. Hsaing has came to church once since I have been here and she said once she is done moving we can start to have lessons. So that will be good

We have a lot of part member families that we are planning on stopping by and we think that they all have a lot of potential so that is going to be the focus for this week. There are a lot of Children of Record as well. We have met some of them but we just haven't been able to get in with them and teach yet. 

We just met this less active lady named Julie and she let us in and we kind of got to know her. She is a widow and is struggling financially and has to eat out dated food. We talked with her for awhile and we shared the Prince of Peace video and she started crying and the spirit was super strong. She told us about what she is going through and we were able to teach about the Savior and that he is there for her and has felt that. We invited her to church and then told her that she has a family there that can help her and support her and she came to church. I thought that was a super cool lesson.

We have ridden our bikes a lot this week as well and since we were I felt like I should take some pictures of what we were riding by so I have a lot of pictures this week. We also went to Colfax and rode our bikes around there. It's a small little town just over 1000. It makes me feel at home haha but Elder Peterson doesn't like it haha. Today for p day we went to this place called the Devils punch bowl and it is a pretty cool place. Thanks Dad for telling us to go! 

Well anyways that's was my week. It has been a pretty good week. I will talk to y'all later! 

Elder Bullock 

Devil's Punchbowl, Menomonie, WI

Elder Peterson

The sign says it all

Lake Menomin